Tuesday 22 November, 2011

Read the first English excerpt from historian Goetz Aly's new book "Why the Germans? Why the Jews? Equality, Envy and Racial Hatred 1800 - 1933". In response to this question that has been hanging in the air since the end of WWII, Goetz Aly points to the lack of education and fear of progress in so many German Christians at the turn of the century - and to the contrasting readiness of the Jewish population to embrace the new opportunities and education as the ticket to social mobility. Shamed by their shortcomings, the Germans soon turned to racial theory to conceal their envy and resentment.
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Monday 11 April 2011

Budapestis shimmering with culture but Hungary's nationalist government is throwing its weight about in cultural life, effecting censorship through budget cuts and putting its own people in the top-level cultural positions. Government tolerance of hate campaigns against Jews and gays has provoked the likes of Andras Schiff, Agnes Heller, Bela Tarr and Andre Fischer to raise their voices in defence of basic human rights. But a lot of people are simply scared. By Volker Hagedorn read more

Tuesday 17 June, 2008

At the Durban Conference against Racism in 2001, anti-colonialism bared its anti-Semitic face. The UN is planning a follow-up conference in April 2009 in Geneva. Pascal Bruckner tells democracies to keep their distance. read more

Monday 21 January, 2008

"Fear" is the punchy title of book about Polish anti-Semitism whose recent publication in Poland has sparked an emotional debate. Very few people have come to the defence of its author, Jan Tomasz Gross, who has taken on the difficult task of making uncomfortable facts known to a wider audience and removing blind spots in Polish history. By Jakub Kloc-Konkolowicz read more

Monday 30 October, 2006

In a recent speech in Israel, singer, song-writer and polemicist Wolf Biermann castigated Germany for misjudging the tragedy in the Middle East conflict and sympathising with radical Muslims out of patronising contempt. (Photo: Hans Weingartz) read more

Tuesday 22 August, 2006

In an interview with Eszter Radai, the Hungarian author Imre Kertesz talks about his new novel "Dossier K.", the breed of Euro-anti-Semitism after Auschwitz and how to survive a dictatorship. read more